Effects of allelochemicals on plant respiration and oxygen isotope fractionation by the alternative oxidase

The goal of this investigation was to determine the effects of allelochemicals on plant respiration that thereby may be responsible for their role in growth inhibition. We have tested the effects of juglone, quercetin, cinnamic acid, and-pinene on respiration rates, and electron partitioning through the cytochrome and alternative respiratory pathways, by measuring on-line oxygen consumption and oxygen isotope fractionation in soybean cotyledon tissue. Cinnamic acid and-pinene decreased the oxygen consumption rate and increased the relative partitioning of electron transport to the alternative pathway. Possible biochemical mechanisms of these effects are discussed.     

BLOOD VISCOELASTICITY FOR CONDITIONS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL FLOW IN SMALL ARTERIES

The viscoelasticity of blood is quantified by studying the oscillatory flow of suspensions of RBC in plasma in 218 μm and 400 μm glass capillary tubes. The flow conditions are chosen to reflect normal physiological flow in small arterial vessels. Data are obtained for suspension hematocrits between 35 and 80 percent, and at physiological temperature (37°C) The results indicate that the elastic component of the viscoelasticity of blood is effectively negligible for the conditions of this study; the measured pressure gradient-flowrate relationship is dominated by the viscous component of blood viscoelasticity.     

Chemical nature of a supercritical-gas extract of coal at 350 °C

A novel supercritical-gas (toluene) extract, comprising 17.0% of a low-rank coal, was separated by a combination of solvent fractionation and both silica-gel and gel-permeation chromatography. The average structure of the soluble fractions, together amounting to 85% of the extract, was investigated by a variety of spectroscopic methods, including high-resolution ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance, proton-decoupled pulse Fourier transform ¹³C magnetic resonance, infrared and low-ionizing-voltage mass spectrometry. Analyses were also made by gas chromatography. The results for the low-oxygen fractions are consistent with a generally open-chain polynuclear aromatic average structure with about 33% of the available sites carrying alkyl substituents. The most common of these is methyl, but there are also substantial numbers of longer-chain alkyls, some branched, and naphthenic groups. The fractions rich in oxygen also have similar structure but for the presence of phenolic hydroxyl groups, and, as is demonstrated for the first time by ¹³C n.m.r., ether oxygen links. Aliphatic constituents are mainly straight-chain alkanes with some branched-chain and isoprenoid hydrocarbons. These conclusions are discussed in terms of the thermal history of the extract and are compared with other contemporary views on the low-molecular-weight constituents of coal.     

Parallelised production of fine and calibrated emulsions by coupling flow-focusing technique and partial wetting phenomenon

The capacity of microfluidic technology to fabricate monodisperse emulsion droplets is well established. Parallelisation of droplet production is a prerequisite for using such an approach for making high-quality materials for either fundamental or industrial applications where product quantity matters. Here, we investigate the emulsification efficiency of parallelised drop generators based on a flow-focusing geometry when incorporating the role of partial wetting in order to make emulsion droplets with a diameter below 10 μm. Confinement intrinsically encountered in microsystems intensifies the role played by interfaces between liquids and solids. We thus take advantage of partial wetting to enhance the maximum confinement accessible due to liquid flow focusing. We compare the performances brought by partial wetting to more established routes such as step emulsification. We show that the step configuration and the partial wetting regime are both well suited for being parallelised and thus open the way to the production of fine and calibrated emulsions for further applications. Finally, this new route of emulsification that exploits partial wetting between the fluids and the channel walls opens possibilities to the formation of substantially smaller droplets, as required in many fields of application.     

Economical and Efficient Fading Lamps*

Tests have been made with over 300 dyed or pigmented materials exposed to mercury-tungsten or mercury lamps. The colorations were of a wide range of hue and light-fastness properties (1 to 8 and above) and in several depths on different substrates. The mercury-tungsten fluorescent lamp (500 W) gave results identical with those obtained with daylight or xenon arclight for 75% of the very varied selection of 174 patterns examined, and 25 % were within one-half of a grade, except for five which differed by one grade. When the blue standards are faded in this lamp (at 45% r.h.), they have an average interval factor of about 2.1. The required times of exposure are similar to those for the xenon arclight. The equipment required is extremely simple, and its initial and operating costs are considerably lower than those of methods hitherto used for testing in artificial light. The equipment can readily be used on the laboratory bench and is suitable for routine testing of the light fastness of any coloured material. In addition to the control of humidity, temperature control is possible, though this is not usually necessary. The mercury-vapour lamp (400 W) has also been similarly examined, using 138 patterns. It is not recommended for general use but is valuable for routine sorting tests of materials of very high fastness (BS grading above 7). The blue standard patterns fade, under exposure to these lamps, in the same sequence and with similar interval spacings, as in daylight or xenon light.     

“危机，什么危机？”

8月中旬当美国大型投资机构Sentinel停止投资者抽离资金时，它的理由是市场出现了“恐慌”。毫无疑问：近日全球市场剧烈震荡，导致金融界某些领域的危机感日益加剧。[第一段]     

Development and pilot testing of the Neuromuscular Blockade Advisory System

The neuromuscular blocker advisory system (NMBAS) is a computer program developed to provide advisory guidance to anesthesiologists on the timing and dose of rocuronium to paralyze patients during surgery. It is believed that the use of such a system will administer the minimally effective amount of drug, maintaining the patient in a state of paralysis that is useful for surgery yet easily reversible. This will improve patient safety and result in more efficient care. In this paper we present the NMBAS, its basic methodology, and its development though a pilot study. Novel methods of handling neuromuscular response data are presented, including relaxation measurement and the enhanced-train-of-four sensing modality. New methods of handling nonlinearities at the neuromuscular junction to allow application of adaptive control techniques are presented. A novel form of modelling combining model swapping and RLSE adaptation to accommodate the patient variation seen with NMB drugs is introduced. A pilot study testing the NMBAS was undergone to prepare the NMBAS for application in a full clinical trial, in which patients undergoing prostate brachytherapy surgeries using rocuronium for intubation were admitted.     

Automated analysis of images in documents for intelligent document search

Authors use images to present a wide variety of important information in documents. For example, two-dimensional (2-D) plots display important data in scientific publications. Often, end-users seek to extract this data and convert it into a machine-processible form so that the data can be analyzed automatically or compared with other existing data. Existing document data extraction tools are semi-automatic and require users to provide metadata and interactively extract the data. In this paper, we describe a system that extracts data from documents fully automatically, completely eliminating the need for human intervention. The system uses a supervised learning-based algorithm to classify figures in digital documents into five classes: photographs, 2-D plots, 3-D plots, diagrams, and others. Then, an integrated algorithm is used to extract numerical data from data points and lines in the 2-D plot images along with the axes and their labels, the data symbols in the figure’s legend and their associated labels. We demonstrate that the proposed system and its component algorithms are effective via an empirical evaluation. Our data extraction system has the potential to be a vital component in high volume digital libraries.     

A rationale for the TEI recommendations for feature-structure markup

In this paper, we concentrate on justifying the decisions we made in developing the TEI recommendations for feature structure markup. The first four sections of this paper present the justification for the recommended treatment of feature structures, of features and their values, and of combinations of features or values and of alternations and negations of features and their values. Section 5 departs briefly from the linguistic focus to argue that the markup scheme developed for feature structures is in fact a general-purpose mechanism that can be used for a wide range of applications. Section 6 describes an auxiliary document called a feature system declaration that is used to document and validate a system of feature-structure markup. The seventh and final section illustrates the use of the recommended markup scheme with two examples, lexical tagging and interlinear text analysis.Terry Langendoen is Professor and Head of the Department of Linguistics at The University of Arizona. He was Chair of the TEI Committee on Analysis and Interpretation. He received his PhD in Linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964, and held teaching positions at The Ohio State University and the City University of New York (Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center) before moving to Arizona in 1988. He is author, co-author, or co-editor of six books in linguistics, and of numerous articles.Gary Simons is Director of the Academic Computing Department of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Dallas, TX. He served on the TEI Committee on Analysis and Interpretation. He received his PhD in Linguistics (with minor emphasis in Computer Science) from Cornell University in 1979. Before taking up his current position in 1984, he spent five years in the Solomon Islands doing field work with SIL. He is author, co-author, or co-editor of eight books in the fields of linguistics and linguistic computing.The initial feature-structure recommendations were formulated by the Analysis and Interpretation Committee at a meeting in Tucson, Arizona in March 1990, following suggestions by Mitch Marcus and Beatrice Santorini. The authors received valuable help in the further revision and refinement of the recommendations from Steven Zepp.